Warnings / character death

Lyrics / The Other Side | Woodkid

This is un-beta'd.

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THE OTHER SIDE
Marigold Faucet

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I heard a whisper on my shoulder

Pretending life is worth the fight

—

The first time, Azanulbizar is still a barely healed wound.

It is an orc sword, rusted with old blood and poison that pierces his side and throws him to fever. He is too hot and too cold, burning from one extreme to the next. There are snatches of clarity stolen from muddied nightmares, voices and faces and grabbing hands that he knows but cannot place.

It hurts, more than he thought it could.

I am dying, Dwalin thinks. There are hands on his face and hands on his hands; soft and gentle, rough and scarred. They are familiar these hands, though they have not held him in some time. One pair consumed by dragon-fire and the other lost in the midst of battle beneath soft green leaves and bright blue sky.

"You are not dying, mim azaghâlê," his mother says, forehead pressed against his own. She is as he remembers, whole and alive, from before the dragon came and burnt her into ash. Father, stands at her side and he too is whole, not bleeding out or burning on a funeral pyre a top a hundred other dead.

"Nobody dies before their time," Fundin says and holds his hand tight. "And you still have much to live for."

I miss you, Dwalin tries to say, but it comes as nothing more than a raspy rush of air. His throat is dry and everything aches, but there are voices; familiar and alive calling to him and asking him to wake. He does not think he wants to, but his eyes open clear and sharp to blinding daylight.

"We almost lost you," Balin says, voice tight with old and bone-deep grief. Dwalin wants to assure him that he is fine, that his time has not yet come and that he will not be left in this world alone, but his voice rests beneath a too heavy tongue. He hasn't the strength to lift it.

Thorin too is there and he smiles, small and relieved: "Do not frighten us like that again."

It is an order and though Thorin is not yet King, Dwalin does not disobey.

—

I remember cheering from towers

A face is smiling in the light

—

The second time, Erebor is won and Dáin sits upon the throne.

It is a tunnel, poorly supported, that collapses on him. A sharp, fat rock presses on his chest, causing what little breath he has to skitter from his lungs. More rocks pin him to the smooth, green marble floor: he does not think of games played within these halls, of echoing laughter and childish joy.

He counts three in total; three rocks for three sons, one for each Durin he swore and failed to protect.

It is dark in this would-be tomb and it is not the end he would have liked, but maybe—

I deserve this, Dwalin thinks. Breathing hurts (it always hurts) and his chest aches (it always aches), but despite the pain his mind feels clear and his heart feels lighter. It is not the death he would have liked, but that does not mean it is not welcome.

"You shouldn't think like that," Fíli says from Dwalin's left. He turns his head dizzyingly fast, his neck protesting the sudden strain, eyes immediately latching onto Fíli. He sits shadowed and alone, a rare sight in life (and in death); for where ever Fíli goes, Kíli is always sure to follow.

"You should stop blaming yourself too," Kíli says from the right. Dwalin is more careful, slowly turning his head to meet the eyes of the youngest (too young to be dead and stone).

"I'm sorry," Dwalin rasps, throat thick and wet with copper and iron. There is blood in lungs and throat and mouth, but his heart still beats loud and fast against the still mountain air.

"We're not," Fíli says. Dwalin wonders if they are real or if they are wraiths of his imagining, come to ease his guilty heart before it stops beating completely. If he is dying, then he does not mind the company.

"You're not dying, Mister Dwalin," Kíli smiles, wide and bright (and doesn't it hurt to hear the lad call him that again). "Nobody dies before their time."

"That's what 'their time' means," Fíli smirks, as if he has imparted some great secret. There is the rumble of stone and a flood of voices, drowning what Fíli says next beneath the din. Light fills the tunnel, brilliant and blinding, and then Fíli is gone and Kíli too.

Someone is calling his name, hands pressing on his face and pulling at the rocks. There is a release, the snap of bone and a rush of blood past his lips. Consciousness slips from him in a burst of pain and he hopes that this death.

Time passes; Dwalin wakes and breathes and lives.

And he learns to keep from hoping.

—

And I was promised

The glorious ending of a knight

—

The third time, Balin has yet to leave for Moria.

It is an arrow, fletched white and brown (wild turkey, sings a voice that sounds too painfully like Kíli), that strikes muscle and bone. There is an explosion of pain, acute and burning in his shoulder, and it should not feel as it does. He is too breathless, too unsteady and everything tingles and aches.

He falls and does not think of the green grass that brushes against his burning skin. He does not think of the Mountain in the distance or the wide expanse of blue above him, when he has once again come accustomed to high vaulted ceilings and echoing halls.

He thinks that this is the reprieve he has spent decades looking for.

I am ready, Dwalin thinks and someone chuckles, dark and deep (like the Mountain itself). He knows that laugh and the smile he knows is there; both so easily given once, only to fade beneath the weight of grief.

"Thorin," Dwalin breathes and he is glad feeling has left him, for the wound on his heart would be too great to bear.

"Indeed," Thorin says, lowering himself to sit by Dwalin's side. He looks lighter, freer—happier, Dwalin notes and perhaps he is, no longer burdened by the fates of his people or the call of a Mountain that is no longer home but a tomb and a grave.

"I'm sorry," Dwalin rasps, throat suddenly thick and tight. He has a vague recollection of saying this before (over and over as tears fall on cold, still bodies), but his mind feels muddled and clear memory escapes him. "Forgive me, please."

"There is nothing to forgive," Thorin says.

"It shouldn't have been you," Dwalin says and it should have been me, not you or Fíli or Kíli hangs left unsaid between them.

Thorin shakes his head: "It was my time."

"Time?" Dwalin asks, incredulous (though it falls flat against his own weakness). "You were meant to be King."

"A King who would have led his people to war," Thorin says. His tone holds no ire or scorn, only the simplicity that only facts can hold. "For madness and gold."

Dwalin snorts, "I would have followed you."

"Not in death, not then and not now," Thorin says. "It's not your time yet."

"What does that mean?" Dwalin huffs, the memory sitting beyond his reach. He has been here before, with different faces and different voices all telling him—

"Nobody dies before their time," Thorin says and Dwalin wakes, suddenly—violently, to find Balin by his bedside, relieved and furious and exhausted. Balin shouts at him, despite Óin's warning against it, and Dwalin lets him rage, too tired in his heart and soul to offer any fight or apology.

When Balin finishes, face red and stained with tears unshed, he asks what he always asks on days like this: "Do you want to die?"

Yes, Dwalin thinks, but never says, though it is not my time.

—

I'm slowly drifting into slumber

'Cause I have lost the force to fight

—

The fourth time, the War is over and the One Ring destroyed.

It is fists and boots and steeled knuckles that cut him, bruise him and leave him drunk and bleeding in a shadowed alleyway. Dwalin does not remember where he went, what insults he'd thrown in his drunken, grieving stupor. He'd wanted a fight, but he is not as young as he once was and well, he has always had his brother to pull him from trouble.

But not anymore.

Let it be my time, Dwalin thinks. It's not, he knows it's not but that does not keep the bone-deep prayer from falling past his lips like a mournful litany.

"It's not," Balin says. Dwalin's heart jolts in his chest, an all too familiar ache pushing past the hazy fog of ale. Balin looks younger than he remembers, but then death seems to free many from the heavy chains of burdened grief.

"You left," Dwalin mutters, without accusation.

"Aye," Balin nods.

"You died," Dwalin says, choking back a violent sob. "I should have been there with you."

"You'd have died with me," Balin says and kneels by Dwalin's side. Balin lowers his forehead to Dwalin's own and it's warmer than he expects. He closes his eyes, inhaling deeply and pretends that Balin is real and whole and alive. He feels like a dwarfling again, scraped and bruised, running to the arms of big brother Balin, but those days are long gone and will never be again. "And it would not have been your time."

"How can you know that?" Dwalin asks.

"Nobody dies before their time," Balin says, eyes crinkling with his own private humour. "I thought you knew that by now."

"Don't—" Dwalin starts, because he knows what is too follow and he doesn't want to be alone, but it is too late. There are hands on his chest and air in his lungs, there is life and there is death in all the wrong places.

Balin is gone like the others.

And life goes ever on and on, though he doesn't want it to.

—

It's like a cold hand on my shoulder

I'll see you on the other side

—

The final time, there is peace.

It is time.

—

And in the arms of endless anger

Will end the story of a soldier in the dark

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Fin.

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Khuzdul:

mim azaghâlê / my little warrior